Chapter Text
Okay. So this isn’t ideal.
That’s Summer’s first thought as she comes to face-down in a lifeboat. She looks up, and the first thing she sees is a frozen cloud of her breath billow away on the wind. She pulls herself to the edge of the boat, sees chunks of ice float past her on the black water… and lets out a long, frustrated groan.
It’s not that she thought this job wasn’t going to go south - no one honest pays this much to take a ‘one-time research participant’ to the Antarctic Circle - but perhaps she’d underestimated just how south it would go.
Heh, south. Antarctica. Okay, concentrate.
Summer had a Swiss Army knife and a burner phone stuffed in her boots, but she can tell they’ve taken it. She pats down her coat - good thing they left her with this - until she finds the pockets; dammit, nothing. On the boat, there’s a container for clean water and rations, but of course the only thing that comes out today is a sheet of paper; she nearly loses it in the wind, and when she sees it’s addressed to her she briefly wants to let it go anyway.
“Alright,” she grumbles. “There’s cheaper ways to kill someone. Let’s see what these jokers want.”
To Ms Summer Pines,
(Huh, first time she’s been called Ms in a while. Sure, it’s by some people who ditched her in the ocean, but it’s still nice)
This is a good day for you. Do NOT worry.
(And gee, isn’t it encouraging when a letter starts like that?)
You came to us from nothing, with nothing. You came, seeking the opportunity for a new life. For new beginnings. For new purpose.
(Or just a paycheck, it doesn’t have to be that deep - okay, she should really just read it)
We see this in you, for we were once like you. Before we knew the Truth and saw the Lights as they truly were, we were nothing. Came from nothing.
Now, let yourself be more than this. Let night come, and with it let the Truth be revealed to you.
SEPARATION IS AN ILLUSION. DISTANCE IS RELATIVE. WE ARE INFINITE.
And that is it. Summer takes one look at the rather enthusiastically typed ending, and presses her forehead against the edge of the boat.
Great. Got herself mixed up in some weirdo cult. Maybe she really won’t make it out of this alive.
Summer stares down at the black water. She makes a face, then sighs… then takes her glove off, scoops up a bit of seawater, and tries it.
“Eugh. Oh, wow, that’s gross. That really is salty.” She spits it out, shivers, and rubs her mouth. “Welp, always wondered if it was really that bad. Guess that’s something off the bucket list, eh?”
Summer laughs a bit, to herself. She stares out at the ocean, the ice chunks, the setting sun.
“Guess I won’t get Paris, but… there we go. There we go.”